This invention pertains to driving devices for belt conveyors such as grain elevator legs where the drive and power devices are often at the top of an elevator where it is difficult to reach in order to make adjustments. The device includes a tilting main drive axle having one side tiltable and the opposite side adjustable by the use of shims.
Because this device is principally usable on grain elevator conveyor legs, it will be described in that setting. However, it may be useful in other settings where belt type conveyors are used.
In grain elevators, the elevating device is typically a conveyor belt having a series of cups fastened to the belt. The belt is driven from a top or drive pulley and is held taut by the bottom pulley. Grain is caught in the cups as they are lifted on one side of the pulley and is elevated by the rising cups which dump their contents as they go over the upper pulley.
Because the upper pulley is necessarily at the top of the elevator above the top level of grain when the bin of the elevator is completely full, it is relatively difficult to get at. Therefore, if the pulley is even slightly misaligned so that adjustment is needed, there is some difficulty reaching the location of the pulley. That difficulty is compounded when the adjustment requires belts to be loosened, retightened and then readjusted again after testing the alignment by running the belt.
By the present invention, an adjustment of the alignment of the upper pulley in particular is made much easier so that the realignment of the pulley becomes substantially less onerous and probably more accurate because of the relative ease of the task.